Chapter 64: Ghosts of Sicily

MATEO – POV

My final day in Rome unfolded like a triumphant farewell. The sun bathed the domes and narrow alleys in golden light, and I walked among embraces, greetings, and blessings. Everyone knew it was my last day here: at dawn I would depart back to Mexico—to San Cristóbal, to the cathedral rebuilt from ashes, to the flock waiting for me.

I smiled. I gave thanks. I blessed with the practiced gesture of a seasoned actor.

But inside, I was exhausted. I wanted silence—a dark room where no one called me saint, where no one looked at me as an example of anything.

I returned to the Vatican with that familiar mix of relief and guilt that had become my natural state. And then, as I reached the entrance of the residence at the Pontifical Pio Latin American College, I saw them.

Two tall figures, impeccably dressed in black, leaning in the shadow of a marble column. It took me only a second to recognize them.

Santiago and Sebastián.

The twins. My brothers.

They rose at the same time, like a perfect reflection. Their footsteps echoed on the polished marble. The same faces as always—hard, sharp, with that look that blends mockery and threat. Our father’s blood ran strong in them.

“Little brother,” Santiago said with a crooked smile. “It’s been a long time.”

I froze. The air weighed on my lungs like molten lead.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, my voice as cold as I could make it.

Sebastián opened his arms as if to embrace me. I stepped back instinctively.

“Easy, Mateo. We’re not here to drag you into anything. We just wanted to see you before you head back to Mexico.”

My chest tightened. Fifteen years without seeing them. Fifteen years since I left Guadalajara, since I changed my life and buried my surname as one buries the dead.

“I’m not one of you,” I spat. “That last name doesn’t belong to me. I built my life far from Dad’s dirty business.”

Santiago held my gaze. His voice sounded low—almost wounded.

“We didn’t come to fight, brother. We came because we are your brothers. And because Mom… Mom is still waiting for you. And she’s dying.”

The word Mom cut through me like a red-hot blade.

Sebastián pulled a small box from his Italian jacket—black velvet with a golden ribbon—and handed it to me before I could stop him. I opened it with trembling hands.

Inside was a silver locket, old and heavy. I opened it.

The photo was there: me at eight years old, hugging my mother in the courtyard of the Jalisco estate. Her smile lit up everything, and in her eyes there was not yet the sadness life would bring beside Rodrigo Salazar—my father.

I swallowed hard. It felt as if the marble floor opened beneath my feet.

“She has terminal cancer,” Santiago said bluntly, his voice sharp. “The doctors give her weeks—maybe days. She asked us to come all the way to Rome. She wants to see you one last time before she dies. She says if you don’t come now, it will be too late.”

“We want nothing else, Mateo,” Sebastián added, his voice surprisingly gentle. “We’re not here to force you or drag you back. Just to tell you that you still have a mother waiting for you in Guadalajara. And she’s on her deathbed.”

I watched them. They were the living image of everything I had left behind: tall, broad-shouldered, hands marked by a life of disguised violence. They wore expensive Italian suits, Rolex watches, but nothing could hide the hardness in their eyes.

They followed Dad’s path—the drug business that turned the Salazars into one of Jalisco’s most feared families. I did not.

When I turned sixteen, they tried to pull me in. To put a gun in my hands. To make me part of the family cartel. I refused. I ran to the seminary in Guadalajara and became Mateo—the seminarian seeking redemption. Years later, I asked for a transfer to Chiapas, as far away as possible.

I never went back.

Not when Dad was shot dead in an ambush.

Not when my cousins were buried after turf wars.

I made my choice: to serve God, not blood stained with sin.

I stood there with the locket in my hand, unable to tear my eyes from the photo. My mother’s voice echoed in my memory like a painful refrain.

She used to call me her little angel. And I—in my pride and fear—forgot her.

Santiago broke the silence.

“You leave for Mexico tomorrow. We know. Just think about stopping in Guadalajara first. One night. One goodbye. That’s all she asks.”

I shook my head violently.

“No. My life is in San Cristóbal. My duty is there. I’m a new man. A monsignor. I won’t return to that hell.”

Sebastián smiled bitterly—a smile so much like our father’s it made me nauseous.

“We’re not asking you to return to the business, Mateo. Just to come home. She asks for nothing else. Just to look at you one last time before she closes her eyes forever.”

They both stepped back. I stood frozen, clutching the locket until it hurt. I watched them walk down the marble corridor like identical shadows—like ghosts the past had thrown in my face.

An unfamiliar emptiness tore through me. Part of me wanted to run after them, ask about my mother, embrace them even if they were demons in tailored suits. The other part screamed at me to stay firm, not to fall into the trap of memory and guilt.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lit a candle in my room and watched the flame dance. The locket rested in my palm like an unbearable weight.

Fifteen years.

Fifteen years without seeing her.

Not even when they buried Dad—that ambitious man who dragged us all into the narco hell. I hated him so much that I tore out everything that came from him by the root. And in doing so, I tore out my mother as well.

Guilt gnawed at my insides. I preached forgiveness and mercy, honoring father and mother—yet I had condemned my own mother to oblivion out of fear of being tainted by her world.

Memories came uninvited, ambushing me. Guadalajara. The family estate surrounded by agave fields. My mother combing my hair before private school. Her voice singing in the kitchen while she made gorditas. The night my father took me to the basement and placed a gun in my hand.

“A Salazar must be strong. He must learn to shoot without trembling.”

I dropped it as if it burned and ran into my mother’s arms, crying. She held me, covered my face, and told me I didn’t belong to that life. That I was different. That I was special.

She was right. But to be different, I had to tear myself out by the roots and leave her alone in that hell.

The midnight bell rang over Rome. The city slept, but I burned in silence like a candle consuming itself. I sat on the bed with the locket pressed to my chest, feeling the cold metal against my skin.

I am a monsignor.

A guide to thousands.

An example to many.

My face appears in newspapers and broadcasts.

But at this moment, I am only a son who abandoned his dying mother.

My brothers’ words echoed in my head: “She has terminal cancer. She wants to see you. She expects nothing more. Just one last look.”

I closed my eyes. I saw her aged face, lined by pain and loneliness, that smile still protecting me in memory. I felt myself split in two.

Dawn approached. My luggage was ready. The ticket to Mexico City and the connection to Tuxtla lay on the table. At sunrise, I was meant to depart for San Cristóbal.

And yet my mind was not in Chiapas.

It was in Jalisco.

With my dying mother.

At my father’s grave I never visited.

With the family I tried to forget—and that now knocked at my door like a ghost demanding answers.

I went to the window. Rome glowed beneath the stars. I touched my neck, felt the weight of the locket hanging like a sentence, and whispered like a lost, frightened child:

“Mom…”

Tears burned silently, falling onto the purple cassock.

People see me as a saint.

I know I am a sinner in every sense: I broke my vows with Lucía, abandoned my mother out of cowardice, fled my blood like a traitor.

An ungrateful son.

A man divided between three worlds that grant me no peace—the sacred, the carnal, and the familial.

And tomorrow I must decide:

Do I return straight to San Cristóbal as the monsignor everyone expects?

Or do I go first to Guadalajara—to face the past I swore to bury and say goodbye to the only woman who loved me without conditions?

The answer terrified me.

Because I knew that no matter what I chose, I would remain a broken man.